Editor's note: Hamzah Rifaat Hussain is a former visiting fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, and currently serves as assistant researcher at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in Pakistan. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

On September 24, the United States Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun made an announcement on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, where Washington D.C. would be providing 720 million U.S. dollars of humanitarian aid to Syria, nearly 152 million U.S. dollars for Africa's Sahel region and 108 million U.S. dollars for South Sudan.

This allocation is being provided for regions which are de facto conflict zones and host a multitude of non-state actors, proxies and rival factions, which have contributed toward the dire humanitarian quagmire the U.S. seeks to address.

While the decision to allocate humanitarian aid in sensitive regions is commendable, American history of interventionism and inability to resolve conflicts, which underpin humanitarian quagmires, makes a case as to why provision of aid alone will not suffice.

The Syrian crisis is one such example given that it is one of the world's most dire humanitarian case studies. The crisis which began in 2011 is now characterized as a motley of various factions, groups and militias vying for influence in the country.

American adamancy under the Obama administration in dethroning the Bashar al-Assad regime over legitimacy and the usage of chemical weapons was a contributing factor to the intractable nature of the current conflict in Syria. The reasons are obvious.

Threats to use force on humanitarian grounds resulted in Damascus becoming defiant towards what it largely views as foreign sponsored militants backed by Western powers instead of protesters. The rationale of preemption in international law has been questioned on both moral and scholarly grounds, where the decision to strike Syria or institute regime change as a pretext for peace was a central tenet of the Obama doctrine.

While the Trump administration marked a considerable detraction from its predecessors on the subject of intervention, the United States continues to be the world's top exporter of major arms accounting for 36 percent of the global share from 2015 to 2019. Proxy groups inevitably benefit from these arms sales in the quest for conducting operations against sovereign governments which contributes towards a persistent and debilitating humanitarian crisis.

With regional powers involved in sponsoring rival proxies within states such as Syria, the consequence is often widespread malnutrition, infectious diseases and pressure on already underfunded and incapacitated health infrastructures to cope with COVID-19.

American policies of intervention have had an impact on the wider Middle East as well, which includes the troubled state of Yemen experiencing a cholera epidemic, a refugee crisis and severe child malnutrition. U.S. support to states in the Middle East which wish to counter proxies such as the Houthi rebels has translated into the bombardment of civilian targets as "collateral damage," which is similar to previous U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Repeated calls from the United Nations to implement ceasefires and a cessation of hostilities have largely gone unheeded. Furthermore, American binary approaches which exclude legitimate Palestinian grievances have also contributed to the resolve of various proxy groups which often cite American ignorance for the Palestinian cause as justifications for conducting violence in the region.

In contrast, regional powers viewed as competitors or adversaries by Washington such as Iran, Russia and Turkey have refrained from adopting similar binary approaches in Syria. Instead, they endeavored to establish safe zones for civilian rehabilitation.

The Sahel region and restive South Sudan are other areas with debilitating health issues which have festered without robust government policymaking.

The South Sudanese civil war that started in 2013 has caused intense political instability, leaving an indelible impact on its socio-cultural milieu.

The Sahel region which includes the impoverished states of Mali, Mauritania and Chad have also witnessed severe ethnic and political strife worsened by myopic U.S. policies directed at preferences for certain counter-terrorism offensives, or backing a single political party at the expense of another. On top of this is the presence of terrorism and insurgencies which requires sovereign governments to initiate counter-terrorism operations through joint collaborations due to capacity issues.

Questioning the legitimacy of one government at the expense of another in the Sahel region, as is the case with Syria and Yemen, contributes towards rival factions, entities and parties engaging in a prolonged power struggle, resulting in the civilian population suffering immeasurably and contributing towards a humanitarian disaster.

The results of American intervention are staggering. A refugee crisis with thousands of impoverished and conflict-torn citizens resorting to European shores has been coupled with political discourses which govern the intake of immigrants across the continent. Furthermore, widespread famine and hunger with efforts to conclude peace deals failing considerably has contributed to the humanitarian disaster which confronts these regions.

Hence, while humanitarian assistance and munificence is laudable on Washington's part, it is equally important to question the policies enabling gross humanitarian disasters in both Syria and the Sahel region, as interventions and preemption impact the lives of millions. 

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